Heart of Ice

Olivia laughed. It was a break in the tension of making the call that she needed.

“Just realistic, I guess. Thanks, Ms. Trexler. See you tomorrow afternoon.”

The conversation played in her head after she dropped off the kids with her mother and headed north. Olivia told her mom she was going to have lunch with friends and spend the day on Melrose, then the Beverly Center. She couldn’t explain why her husband wouldn’t talk about his past. She loved him so much, but there was a stinging hurt over being with a man who had no connection to anyone from a past longer than a couple of years.

If there had been an easier way, one that hadn’t required deception, she would have gladly gone that route. But the Sea Breeze had been purchased by a major newspaper chain in the late 1980s. The archives were summarily dumped by the new owners. So much for history. The only saving grace was that Gwen Trexler was still alive and very much willing to help.

Now almost seventy, Gwen Trexler was living in a duplex in Acton, her PR firm having given up the ghost. It was a spotless place, with a manicured flowerbed that in a month or so would be the envy of any garden magazine. The duplex was painted a bronze tone with orange trim that while strange, somehow worked. It was clear coming up to the front door that Mrs. Trexler likely lived alone—everything was in perfect order. Next door was another matter. A swing set and a debris field of toys indicated that a family with kids had taken up residence on the other side. It was order vs. chaos. Family vs. alone.

Gwen Trexler was a tall woman, at almost six feet, with a slim and muscular build. Her features were angular, almost Cubist. She wore a cotton blouse and a denim skirt that almost touched the floor. Her eyes matched the jade on the pendant that swung around her neck.

She opened the screen door and ushered Olivia inside.

“I made some mango smoothies,” she said. “No sugar. I use honey and whey powder to give me a little pick-me-up in the afternoons.”

Olivia thought it sounded awful, but her mother taught her to take a sip and “pretend to enjoy because that makes the host happy.”

It was a rule she lived by.

“Sounds delicious,” she said, taking a glass.

The living room was surprisingly large, facing out to a valley view that held several hundred head of cattle. There were so many that it was hard to see where one animal ended and another began.

“Seems like a stockyard, I know,” Gwen said, regarding the sea of black and brown undulating less than a mile away. “The wind’s in my favor today. Thank God.” She set down a pale yellow smoothie, complete with a straw.

“Delicious,” Olivia said, only half-lying. She’d tasted worse.

“I know you want to know more about your husband, so why don’t you just ask him?”

Olivia sipped on the drink, buying time and trying not to feel embarrassed because she’d been shut out of Michael’s life.

“He won’t talk to me. It really is that simple, Ms. Trexler. He has nothing to say.”

She brushed away several strands of white hair from her eyes. “Have you ever heard of letting sleeping dogs lie?”

Olivia had. Her own mother was a major purveyor of homespun advice like that. “Believe me, I’ve thought of that. Maybe there’s something so deep, so dark, that he just can’t go there and get it. I understand that. But…”

“But there’s something that’s propelled you here today.” Gwen Trexler glanced out the window, noticing Olivia’s car. “I see from the fingerprints on your windows that you have kids. Is that it?”

“A boy and a girl. And, no, that’s not it. He’s just been so distant lately and he’s lied a couple of times about small things.”

“Like what?”

“Where he was, nothing big.”

“This isn’t about an affair?”

Olivia shook her head emphatically. The idea of an affair was ludicrous. “No. Not at all. Just lately, he’s been crying in his sleep.”

Gwen narrowed her gaze at the pretty young woman. An affair had been a stupid suggestion. “I see,” she said.

“I just have a feeling that he’s trying to deal with all that happened to him, and if I knew, I’d be able to help.”

Gwen looked over at the file. She tapped her opalescent nails on a yellowed folder she retrieved from a side table. “What little I have is right here.”

“Do you keep copies of all the stories you write?” Olivia asked.

“Heavens, no.” Gwen swished the spoon in her drink to loosen the frozen concoction. “Only what interests me.”

There was something foreboding in the former reporter’s tone and Olivia let it pass.

Gwen opened the file and spread out the clippings on the coffee table. The one on top was the one that Michael had kept.

“I wasn’t sure there would be more than the one I’d already seen,” Olivia said. “May I?”

Gwen watched as Olivia reached over to pick up the brittle stack of clippings, preserved like pressed flowers from a young girl’s high school prom.

“Help yourself. I won an award for it. Best spot news reporting for a paper in the lowest circulation category for a daily newspaper.” She laughed. “Back then, I was young enough to think that you could actually get somewhere in the newspaper business by being good. What a joke.”

There were three stories, including the original with the photo. The headline on the second clipping almost made her gasp.

Disney Kids Mother Found?

The article detailed how the body of a woman had been found in a bed at the Igloo Motel on Katella Avenue, across from Disneyland three days after Michael and Sarah Barton had been found.

“I don’t understand,” Olivia said, looking up. “What happened to her?”

A gray tabby cat jumped up into Gwen’s lap and she inattentively started to rub its ears.

“Good question. We really don’t know. There were no signs of a struggle. There were no obvious injuries. Mrs. Barton checked into the motel the same day that her children spent in the park. She paid for three days in advance. It was all she had.”

She added: “I thought the headline was irresponsible. We didn’t have any connection to those kids.”

“What do you mean?”

“All we had was a dead woman. No drugs. No signs of violence. Nothing.”

“Who was she?”

“Who knows? Coroner said she’d given birth to at least one child, maybe more. We never made an ID. No one could. She paid cash. No purse. Nothing. They even showed a ghoulishly retouched photo of her to the boy, but he couldn’t ID her. “

Olivia looked back down at the clipping. “Then how did she die?”

“The coroner thought she died, possibly, of asphyxiation. But I think that a mom who would dump her kids like that maybe died of a broken heart.”

Olivia could scarcely think of any reason a mother would leave her children. She would die before she allowed anything to happen to her own. She knew most mothers were that way. But not, it seemed, Michael’s mother.

“What has your husband told you about his family?” Gwen asked.

Olivia felt a flush of defensiveness take over and it bothered her. It was as if the reporter was challenging her on the closeness of her marriage to Michael. She wanted to tell her that she knew everything, but it would be an obvious lie. The reason she’d come up to Acton was for a little piece of the puzzle, a piece that would bring her closer to the man that she loved.

“I don’t mean to be too nosy,” Gwen asked. “Would you mind answering some questions?”

“That seems a little formal. You’re not writing about it, are you?”

“Of course not. Like I said, I’ve often wondered about your husband and his sister.”